PATHANKOT SIEGE DAY 3 NSG ops still on, officers say all assets being combed; civilians inside airbase safe
Aseem Bassi & Vinay Dhingra
PTI PHOTO- NSG Lt Colonel Niranjan EK’s wife (centre) and other family members with his coffin in Bengaluru on Monday. The officer was killed in a grenade blast at the Pathankot air force base on Sunday.Security personnel were searching Punjab’s Pathankot air force base on Monday after killing a fifth attacker in a counter-terror offensive that began last week, while India announced it would decide on foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan slated for January 15 only after the operation is over.
Security sources told HT that a sixth terrorist too had likely been killed but an announcement would only come later as his badly disfigured body was yet to be identified.
“The search and combing operation is still on. All civilians in the airbase are secure,” said Major General Dushyant Singh, inspector general (operations) of the National Security Guards (NSG).As the government mulled its options on the proposed talks with Pakistan, the United Jehad Council, a conglomerate of militant outfits, claimed that the attack was carried out by Kashmiri militants. Government sources, however, believe it is a diversionary tactic and the strategy displayed by the Pathankot attackers indicates they were trained by professional soldiers.
“The terrorists used all the military tactics like conserving firepower, attacking at 3am when the level of alertness is at its lowest and going quiet to give the impression that all the attackers had died,” said an official.
The Prime Minister chaired a high-level meeting in the Capital to discuss the Pathankot counterterror operation during which seven Indian soldiers died and an attack on the Indian consulate at Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan.
Defence minister Manohar Parrikar and FM Arun Jaitley attended the meeting. Jaitley said the attack in Pathankot was a fidayeen strike aimed at causing loss to strategic assets. “I think let the operations get over and it is only then government takes a view on such matters (the talks),” the finance minister told reporters.
Asked why it was taking so long to neutralise the terrorists, Major General Dushyant Singh told reporters that the operation would not end until all assets and the entire airbase had been secured. He did not respond to questions about a sixth terrorist holed up in the area.
There was little clarity on how many terrorists remained within the airbase, while the government asked the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to probe the attack. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, which was blamed for the December 2001 attack on Parliament, is suspected to behind the siege.
A friend of superintendent of police Salwinder Singh whose car was snatched by the attackers ahead of the terror strike told investigators that the four gunmen who overpowered them were receiving instructions to hurry up as “the other group” had already reached the intended place.
Reports earlier on Monday indicated that at least two terrorists were hiding in a building that housed families of air force personnel and that the gunmen had arrived in two separate groups.
There were unconfirmed reports in the afternoon that the two-storey building in which the terrorists were holed up had been razed.
Security analysts raised questions about the operation that has lasted longer than the 26/11 Mumbai attacks when the NSG was rushed to the financial capital to secure multiple targets.
The assault that began early on Saturday morning dragged on as security forces struggled to contain the heavily armed attackers at the sprawling station. The Pathankot airbase is spread over more than 2,000 acres, including forests and tall grass.
The commanding officer of the base, Air Commodore JS Dhamoon, described it as a “mini-city” that includes homes for families and a school for children of the personnel stationed there.
Officials said there have been no civilian casualties and no aircraft or military equipment has been damaged in the fighting. The base houses a fleet of India’s Russian-origin MiG-21 fighter jets and Mi-25 and Mi-35 attack helicopters, along with other military hardware.
‘My father was not afraid of anything’
GURDASPUR: The terror attack on the Air Force station in Pathankot will haunt Madhu Radha forever. As the bullets began flying, she, her mother and her brother took refuge under a bed. However, even as she was hiding under her bed, the terrorists took something precious away from her — her father’s life.
HT PHOTOMartyr Fateh Singh’s daughter Madhu Radha carrying his body for cremation at Jhanda Gujjran village in Gurdaspur district on Monday.Honorary Captain Fateh Singh, who had won medals and accolades in the Commonwealth shooting competitions in Delhi in 1995, was transferred as a personnel of the defence security corps (DSC) from Orissa to Pathankot Air Base.
Madhu Radha, 25, who teaches in a Mhow school, had come with her mother Shobha Rani and brother Nitin to spend her winter holidays with her father in Pathankot when the terrorists decided to strike.
Speaking to Hindustan Times on Monday, Madhu Radha said that her Fateh Singh had just stepped of his quarters on Saturday when the firing started. Ordered to switch off all lights, the family stayed hidden under the bed, till an uncle posted with the Dogra Regiment came to their rescue and took them to his quarters.
She said that her mother had come to know about Fateh’s death, but hid the fact from her brother and her. The siblings only came to know that their father had been martyred after the family arrived at their native village.
Madhu Radha said that her father was unarmed when he happened to spot two of the terrorists. He snatched a gun from one of them and killed the two, but suffered fatal injuries in the process, sustaining two bullet wounds.
Her father, she recalled proudly, was not afraid of anything and always advised others to only speak the truth.
Fateh Singh was cremated with military and civil honours at his native Jhanda Gujjran village in Gurdaspur district on Monday, amidst anti-Pakistan slogans by hundreds of mourners. Madhu was among the pall bearers.
Another martyr, DSC personnel Kulwant Singh, from Gurdaspur’s Chak Sharif, was also laid to rest in his hometown with full honours.
Punjab Police reduced to a mere bystander
SIDELINED Despite experience of anti-terror operations, state police officers kept at arm’s length by army
From page 1 CHANDIGARH: Ever since Pakistani terrorists struck at the Pathankot airbase before dawn on Saturday, the Punjab Police top brass have been kept at an arm’s length by the army. Even as the anti-terror operation that is still not over and is taking place in Punjab’s territory, the state police have literally no clue about what is happening inside the battle zone.
SHYAM SHARMA
AND SAMEER SEHGAL/HT(Top) Army jawans carry the coffin of Havildar Jagdish Chand during his cremation in Chamba; and Brigadier Anupinder Singh Bevli (left), Major General Dushyant Singh, IG (operations), National Security Guard, and Air Commodore JS Dhamoon (right) addressing a press conference at the Pathankot airbase on Monday.The role of the state police has been restricted to ‘traffic management’, while the police top brass known for proven antiterror exercise have been kept at bay. While additional director general of police (ADGP, law and order) HS Dhillon has been camping in Pathankot since January 1, director general of police (DGP) Suresh Arora reached the hot spot on January 2 soon after the terror strikes began. Both cops are well known for their rich experience in anti-terror operations when the border state was in the grip of militancy. However, the role of DGP Arora and ADGP Dhillon in the ongoing operation has been reduced to that of a bystander.
This despite the fact that the first and the concrete input of ultras’ having sneaked inside Pathankot came from the state police after the vehicle of a superintendent of police (SP) was waylaid on the intervening night of December 31 and January 1 by the four terrorists wearing army fatigues. It was the Punjab Police that raised the alarm, prompting other security agencies to react and act fast.
Key state police officers sheepishly admit that they have been reduced to a “doormat” and know “nothing” about what is happening inside the airbase.
“We are clueless about the ongoing operation. The security agencies executing this operation have not involved the Punjab Police in planning etc.,” a senior police functionary admitted. The well-equipped state intelligence wing, which has busted a range of terrorist modules even abroad and are now being headed by DGP Anil Kumar Sharma, who has spent more than a decade in the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) —the premier spy agency of India is groping in the dark.
DINANAGAR OP: STATE POLICE DID IT ALONE
The response to the Pathankot terror strike has brought under spotlight the July 27, 2015, Dinanagar attack and the swift action of the Punjab Police in neutralising hardcore terrorists. Parallels are being drawn between the counter-offensive of the state police in the Dinanagar police station siege and the Pathankot action, where the cream of the Indian defence forces is taking on the terrorists since the morning of January 2.
When the three heavily armed ‘jihadi’ Pakistani terrorists had stormed the police station at dawn on July 27, they were neutralised much before dusk in the counteroffensive exclusively launched by the Punjab Police. Not letting the army take on the ultras holed up inside the police station had come under criticism. But the police’s stand was that state cops were “capable of killing jihadis.” Also, questions were raised that it took police 12 hours to kill terrorists. But the Pathankot operation is not yet over even after almost three days.
Patriotism fills Ambala air as Gursewak Singh cremated
MBALA: “Bharat mata ki jai”slogans rent the air in Garnala village on Monday morning, as the body of Garuda (air force) commando Gursewak Singh, killed in the Pathankot airbase attack, was brought home for cremation. Gursewak’s body arrived in an air force vehicle bedecked with flowers as villagers chanting ‘Gursewak amar rahe (long live Gursewak)’lined the 4-km stretch of the AmbalaNaraingarh road to Garnala.
R KHANNA/HTGaruda (IAF) commando Gursewak Singh’s body being taken for cremation at Garnala in Ambala district on Monday.
Nearly 400 air force personnel escorted the martyr’s body to the cremation ground, where a large number of officers, bureaucrats and villagers had gathered.
Jawans of the 20 Air Force and the Haryana Armed Police fired their guns in the air, upended their guns, and sounded the last post. Gursewak’s brother, a soldier himself, lit the pyre.
State ministers Anil Vij and Nayab Singh Saini, and MLAs Assem Goyal and Balwant Singh laid wreaths on behalf of the government. Vij also announced `20 lakh financial assistance to Gursewak’s family. Ambala police commissioner OP Singh, Air Vice Marshal Parshant Kaushik, Air Force Officer Commanding at the Ambala airbase, Air Commodore Tejinder Singh, also laid wreaths.
Himachal bids tearful adieu to two martyrs
BASA (CHAMBA)/SHAHPUR: Amid the pall of gloom that descended on the twin Basa-Gola villages in Chamba and Siyunh village in Kangra district, the steady stream of mourning villagers bade a tearful adieu to havildar Jagdish Chand and havildar Sanjeevan Singh Rana, killed in the Pathankot airbase attack.
SHYAM SHARMA/HTArmy jawans and officers carry the coffin of martyr Sanjeevan Singh Rana during his cremation at his native village Siyunh near Shahpur in Kangra district on Monday.Defence Security Corps (DSC) personnel havildar Jagdish Chand, 48, from Basa-Gola was one of the first casualties in the attack in the wee hours of Saturday. Chand, who was among the first security personnel to engage the terrorists, managed to neutralise one of the attackers before being shot dead.
“Serving in the Indian Army is a tradition in our family,” said Chand’s elder brother Budhi Singh, who also retired from the army. The martyr’s father, Bachiter Singh, is also an exserviceman, while his younger brother is a serving soldier.
Chand’s body, wrapped with the tricolour, was taken by pall bearers in the afternoon to the village crematorium, where he was cremated with full state and military honours in the presence of administrative officials and local politicians, including forest minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri, and soldiers from 3/11 Gorkha Regiment and 39 Mountain Division.
Chand, who retired from 7 Dogra Regiment and joined the DSC in 2009, is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son, who lit the pyre. He was the family’s breadwinner.
In Siyunh, a sea of humanity swooped down on the premises of havildar Sanjeevan Singh Rana, 50, who was critically injured in the terror attack and succumbed to his injuries on Sunday.
“It’s a tragedy not for me but for the nation. I am proud my son sacrificed his life for the country,” said Rattan Singh, who retired from the army, while trying to hold back tears. “I am a proud soldier and want my grandson to also don the olive greens.”
Rana, who retired from 15 Dogra regiment in 2007 before joining the DSC, is survived by his wife Pinki Devi, a son and two daughters. He, too, was the sole earner in the family. Transport minister GS Bali and social welfare minister Dhani Ram Shandil attended the fallen soldier’s cremation, done with full military honours.
`20 LAKH EACH FOR KIN
SHIMLA: Chief minister Virbhadra Singh on Monday announced a financial assistance of `20 lakh each to the family members of the deceased soldiers.
He loved to be in thick of action, says Samba martyr’s family
SAMBA (J&K): Mortal remains of Lance Naik Mool Raj, who was killed in Pathankot operations, were on Monday consigned to flames with full militarty honours at his native village here.
Mool Raj was such a man who always wanted to be in the thick of action, the family said. The father of two had fallen to the bullets of terrorists inside the airforce base, just a day after he returned to join his duties after celebrating the New Year with his family which consists his aged mother, wife and two college-going children.
Before returning to join his duties in Pathankot, he took a promise from his children that one day they would make him feel proud.
“Instead he made us proud! Though the lacuna that his absence has created in our life will never be fulfilled, but we are proud to have a father like him”, said Mool Raj’s Asish Kumar.
Mool Raj had joined the Defence Security Corps (DSC) after his retirement from the army 13 years ago. Thousands of people, including state minister Chander Prakash Ganga, senior Congress leader Manjeet Singh and senior defence official, bid their final adieu to the braveheart.
Proud of his sacrifice, says NSG bomb expert’s father
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/BENGALURU: : The body of Lt Colonel Niranjan EK, a bomb expert with the National Security Guard (NSG) who was killed while defusing a grenade at the Pathankot airbase, was brought to Bengaluru, from where it was taken to his hometown Palakkad in Kerala.
His body was accompanied by family members and senior IAF and NSG officials, and was taken to his ancestral village Elambulassery by road from Palakkad for last rites. People assembled on both sides of the road to catch a last glimpse of the martyr. It took almost two hours to cover the 20km distance from the helipad to his house.
The cremation will take place on Tuesday afternoon. The body will be placed at a school nearby for the public to pay their respect.